Horizontal Stabilizer Riveting, cont.

May 9, 2011

As predicted last night, I got my two HS skins placed and all the rivets bucked on both sides. All the rest of the rivets can be handled with my squeezer. Everything went together pretty well. I used blind rivets on the underside of the HS again, as I just could not get those skins to come together without fear of ripping something. I did have to use one oops rivet on the top, but nobody can tell.

I suspect that tomorrow evening I’ll be able to report that my HS is complete and ready for action.

Rear spar is cleco'd in place.

This one is funny. I had to rig a sling to hold one side of my HS up while I worked on the other side. Van’s has you assemble the spars before putting the skins on. The result is an 8 foot long HS that just wont fit on my 6′ table. Improvise, adapt and overcome.